Operation: Jupiter
by Stranger-jkl
Summary: "The CIA wants us to kill someone." -Griffin Smith. It is 2022, and eleven years of war have taken the life of Senator Tom Riley, and twenty National Guardsmen. Taskforce Orion has been sent in, to kill him and his cohorts. No exceptions. Jupiter is online.
1. Online

Tom Riley was the Nevadan senator. He had been in the position for two years, ever since he stopped being a volunteer firefighter.

Now here he was, facing jumpy guys toting automatic weapons, him and the twenty still surviving National Guardsmen. They had been ambushed going over a bridge, guns blazing.

Their leader was a man wearing a military uniform, and he had a camera pointed at where the National Guardsmen were forced to stand, at threat of gunfire. A white sheet was behind them, and they stood on white tile.

"Roll the film."

The camera started clicking, recording the next few minutes.

"Fire."

The roaring cacophony of firepower deafened Riley to his thoughts, and he saw the National Guardsmen cut down, bleeding and dead. He rushed forward, screaming something incomprehensible to all, before falling to his knees. He felt cold steel against his head, and exhaled.

The .45 bullet tore into his skull, splattering grey matter and skull all over him.

He slumps over, _dead_.

"Yes, this is Griffin Smith."

"Are you really? I'm sorry, but give me proof."

"...damnit. Fine, you got me. What do you want?"

"Let me get a notepad. Lt. Col. Thomas, with or without a H? With. Calloway. C-A-L-L-O-W-A-Y? Ok, got it. There's the matter of payment though."

"Really? Your contract is on, Mr. Director."

Griffin Smith put down the telephone, and stared. "The director of the CIA wants us to kill someone."

It sounded ridiculous, even to him. It then sounded ridiculous to his financial advisor and second in command, Wolfgang Kryuger. Wolf was a short man with a scarred face and a mop of messy brown hair, to contrast Griffin's tall gaunt face and black hair. They had met in a previous PMC they had worked for, Sentinel Security, and they hit it off, Wolf being Case Officer, Griffin being a good Triggerman. They had made a excellent team.

"Well Wolf?"

"Well Grif?"

"Get Team Orion together. Tell them it's something _big_."

"Last week a Agency Lt. Col. killed a US Senator, and uploaded the entire thing to every site imaginable: 4Chan, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, fucking Instagram even got a snippet of it. Your mission is to go into Nevada, find him, and take down his entire operation. No exception. Calloway must be _killed_. I cannot stress this enough."

"Roger."

"Gotcha."

"'Kay."

"Alright."

"Good. From here on, I am Control. You are: Ares, Artemis, Juno, and Atlas. You'll get flown in by Baseplate. Good luck, Godspeed."

They infiltrated in the dark of night, in one of Nevada's few remaining airports. 'Baseplate' was a Israeli fighter pilot, whose grandfather served in the Six Day War. Ares was a Frenchman, Victor Roux, whose service in many theaters gave him a distinct edge, particularly with bazookas and hand grenades. Artemis was a American, former military. She liked being quiet. And she was good at it, with a crossbow, a silenced RO635, and everything. Juno was the tech-savvy one of the group, having inherited his father's gift for delicate touches. He used a M4A1, and could have hacked into the Pentagon, if he had wanted to. Atlas was the sniper of the group, using a long barreled AR-15 with sniper scope. He called his gun 'Blackout'. As a team, they all worked well with each other.

_Operation: Jupiter is online._


	2. Briefing, Affairs, Replacement

The Israeli spoke first out of all of them. He removed some files, laid them on a table in a semi-deserted airport cafe, and spoke. "There are five targets: Calloway, his arms dealer, his second in command, his chief of security, and his interrogator-slash-propaganda man. We want most of them dead, arms dealer excluded. Which one do you want to know first?"

Artemis looked at the files, and nodded. "Interrogator."

Baseplate smirked. "This guy is crazy. Textbook crazy. Capital C crazy. Name's Herman Tyler. American. He tried to join the army, but was denied, so he found his recruiter, and the psych, and cut their eyes out, swapped them around, and then slit their throats with a rusty butcher's knife."

"Yikes."

"-Doesn't cover it." He taps a picture, a man with blonde hair, green eyes. "This is him. Take him dead."

"And of the arms dealer?"

"We call him the King of Angels. Real name: unknown. Aliases…." He began listing them. "Jack Isaacson, Lawrence Idromeno, Michael Faulkner, Kenneth Rose, Aldrich Ames, Julius Rosenberg, and many more. Goes by Julius here. We have three records of him: a birth certificate, English, a college diploma, and a death certificate. Says he died in a car bomb attack. The man's a runner of anything you want: guns, drugs, cars, but no people. He's supplying Calloway with the guns. Take him out, you take out the arms. Nearly a quarter of all firearms here, are his. That's why he's-" He taps a picture of a man on a Harley Davidson, painted to look like the ever classic World War Two army bikes, wearing a leather jacket, and carrying a Uzi. He has salt-and-pepper hair, and his eyes are blocked by ever present sunglasses "-the Angel King. _Take him alive._ Understood?"

"And his Security?"

The Israeli points to a photograph of a dark haired man in formalwear. "Sebastian Dullahan, better known as Dullahan the Judge. He makes Joe McCarthy look like a puppy on bad days. Even the Agency would like him dead, for the fear mongering. The only reason he ain't? He's a massive kiss-ass. The reason Thomas hasn't killed him? He's good at finding spies. That's why he's Chief of Security. You'd be doing the world a massive favor, by taking out a frankly annoying prick."

"His second?"

A photograph of a army unit, with the leader at the center, beaming. "Dullahan's calmer, quieter, younger brother, Paul. Also known as Major Paul Dullahan, or Comrade Dully (don't call him that to his face though.). Also a massive kiss ass. He might be able to get out alive, if he proves useful. Then again, he's also producing drugs on the side (Thomas doesn't approve), so you could start a civil war. It's up to you. Grif- Control would appreciate him dead."

"Thanks. We'll get to work."

"On who?"

"The Angel King. He seems interesting."

Had the Israeli known more of American espionage history, he would have guessed that Julius Rosenberg was a obvious fake name, as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg sold the secrets of jet propulsion, sonar, radar, and (presumably) atomic bomb making to the Soviets during the turn of the decade. Aldrich Ames, on the other hand, sold out his countrymen for petty cash and fast cars. Ames was the de facto leaker of more files than any other mole, until Robert Hanssen came along, but few know of Hanssen, and Ames is a more household name, in some circles. Juno knew of the fakeness, through a slight interest in the specifics of intelligence agencies. Juno's interest was more the technical side of it, having never been a people person, even in MIT, even in a Computer Science class, and even in his former Head of IT Security Services position at his old job.

But that doesn't matter to either right now.

"I'll take you to the safe house, then I need to get going."

"Good luck man."

The group gets into a van and drive off.

Griffin Smith sat across from his partner, idly staring at the man's long, thin scar, running down his right check, all the way to his neck. It made _him_ look like the combat ready one.

"Scar bugging you?"

"Is that mad bomber still dead?"

It was an inside joke of theirs, referring to an old case of a bomb hucking anarchist who got a bit _too_ lucky with his grenades.

"Well, Wolf."

"Well, Grif?"

"Operation Jupiter is going smoothly so far. Swordbreaker-"

"Is that the Komarov thing?" Wolf interjected, momentarily forgetting the current war routine.

"-Yeah, Igor Komarov. It's going good too, but Monk hasn't been seen for a while."

"He'll be fine. Always is."

"Sure. Hopefully they can convince Julius to switch. Mhm, also sent Baseplate to Russia to help with the Komarov affair."

The Komarov discussion petered out, and the two men fell silent.

Griffin broke first. "Wanna grab a drink?

"Sure."

Julius Rosenberg was going to be replaced. He knew that much.

"Damnit, Pritchard." He muttered to himself, getting up out of his desk. "Damnit. He's undercutting me."

He had no idea who was coming to knock on his door: four highly trained special operatives.

At his position, he would have taken a bullet to the head, if it meant he got away from the chaos.

He opens a pack of smokes, and lights up, thinking as the acidic smoke wafts up, up, away.


	3. Pyromania, Waterboarding, Lists

"Burn them."

"Excuse me?"

Major Paul Dullahan looks over his men, twenty in total, for the dissenting voice. "Excuse. Me?" He repeats in a faux singsong voice.

He taps the ground behind him. "They are subversives. They are resisting. We burn subversives, right, private?"

Them refers to some 'innocent' civilians: a trader and his companion, suspected of smuggling guns to the resistance. Dullahan and his twenty stand in front of them.. Dullahan takes hold of a flamethrower, walking to the dissenting voice. "Now, Corporal Kyle Raines. Show these men what you do to subversives."

The mousy corporal takes the flamethrower, heavy gasoline canister as well, walking to the two traders. He wants badly to whisper an apology, but he cannot. If he does, Major Dullahan will kill him. He inhales, flicks off the safety, and-

_**FOOMPH-FSSSSSSSSHHHHHH!**_

The blue eyed blonde was silently crying as he laid down the fire-throwing demon, and Paul walks up, to comfort him.

"There, there. They were sinners anyways. And besides…"

"Huh?" He looks up, tear and ash stricken face strangely pale, the smell of kerosene on his lips and nose.

"They all burn the same, as do we. In time, the War will close, and Peace will stand. Peace through Order, and all."

The twenty-one men walk off, leaving the charred corpses to rot.

Julius Rosenberg was to be replaced. He had outlived the usefulness of his status, and he knew it well. It wasn't overt, but there, and very present. He was to be either shot or paid off, and he liked neither of those ideas. Joshua Pritchard was the replacement, and he was… very money driven. More so than most. Rosenberg liked money as well, but he was smart about his earning. A knock startles him out of his thoughts, and a ATP Soldat walks through, clipboard in hand. "Sir?"

"Yes?"

The clipboard is handed over, Rosenberg reads it, and sighs.

"_Convoy 92 ambushed. Four assailants._

_KIA:_

_Greaves, R._

_Bookingham, H._

_Gordon, F._

_Westhaus, H._

_Gluck, E._

_Stolen Cargo:_

_All of it."_

Rosenberg sighs, getting up and walking around his medium sized office. He stops in front of a old picture of Berlin at night, and shakes his head.

"Hector-" He begins. "-take the day off. Go home. I need to do something about this."

The Soldat leaves, and Rosenberg studies the painting, thinking.

It's simple, he thought, follow the money.

Had one followed his money, they would have seen a 100,000 USD transaction from a unknown account, in 1989. They also would have seen that he had a few dozen thousand in a Swiss account, much like Wolfgang Kryuger's own Swiss account. Had one followed on Kryuger, they would have seen the account, and that Atlas, or Deacon James Tanner, had a thousand or two stashed in a Wichita bank account under the name of James Deacon.

But learning all that is mostly useless.

Sebastian Dullahan looked at the 'subversive' tied up in his chair, and smirked.

"What's your name, boy?"

The subversive spits in his face, and receives a hard right hook for his troubles.

"Now. I'm going to ask again. Name?"

"Charles Darwin."

"And your commander?"

"The Desert Fox."

"That nut? Ha! As if." He topples the chair. "Now, the truth, please?"

"I'm telling you everything."

"Not your name."

"What?! WHY? It doesn't matter, I'll get packed away in jail anyways-" A cool, wet rag is smacked onto the man's face, and water begins falling on him.

"You're right, but we have to file you away." The rag is lifted, the man sputters, coughs, and gives out a weak expletive.

"What was that?" He leans in.

"Fuck you."

For the man's troubles, Dullahan has Herman kill him. It isn't worth it getting blood on his suit.

The two men leave the room for the janitor and go out to drink.


End file.
